


i mourned for you (baby do you mourn for me?)

by DisasterLesbean



Series: Higher, Further, Faster [1]
Category: Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Pining, characters aren't permanently dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 22:08:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18107447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisasterLesbean/pseuds/DisasterLesbean
Summary: She doesn’t expect to see her again. She’s resigned to mourn and miss once more. She forgets, Carol didn’t get a choice about leaving last time. She does this time. She comes back.





	i mourned for you (baby do you mourn for me?)

Carol Danvers is the best person Maria has ever known. She’s stronger, stronger than anyone else could hope to be. She’s a talented pilot, too talented to sideline but she’s a woman in the military. She’s the biggest pain in the ass. She’s up too early, can hardly take anything seriously, and too damned selfless. It’s why she loses her.

When her one night stand turns into a pink line, Carol doesn’t even blink. She’s all tease and tongue-in-cheek humor but she moves into larger housing. Large enough to fit Monica. Carol doesn’t leave, doesn’t even mention leaving. She’s there during Maria’s pregnancy, making 3am runs for dried cranberries and rice pudding. She massages her feet when Maria asks even if she complains how gross they are. She rubs her back when the morning sickness builds. She’s there at the birth, hand gripping hers. She doesn’t crack any jokes then, she looks astonished. She looks happy. She’s with Maria as Monica grows. Maria has loved her for so long she can hardly discern when it went from friendship to more. 

She was attracted to Carol the first time they met. She’s always found her beautiful. Her leather jacket, messy hair, and wild grin. Maria was a goner. They became friends. Admittedly, a friend she found attractive, and at some point she fell for her best friend. Don’t ask don’t tell summed up her career in the military even before it was established. She knows herself, she’s known herself since she was a child. Men are easy. They never ask and she never tells. She dates men but never men she works with. It’s too messy, too dangerous. The women she works with want to separate themselves from other women. They have a chip on their shoulders and have decided to walk on their fellow women to carry it. So, she doesn’t tell the men or the women she works with. Then comes Carol. 

She’s different because she wants to be different. She soars while everyone else hovers. She quickly becomes her best friend. Then her heart gets the better of her. 

Living with Carol, raising a kid with her, working with her, she should tire of Carol’s company. She never does. She only finds herself deeper, too deep to dig herself out. They don’t ask, she doesn’t tell. For the first time she wants to. When Carol wraps her arms around Maria for a moment longer than proper, she wants to tell her. She wants to tell Carol what she means to Maria. She wants to hold her longer, tighter, more intimate. She wants to whisper praise against soft skin. She wants but she cannot have. 

She tells herself it’s because Carol isn’t queer, she isn’t interested in Maria, they’re too busy with careers as pilots and raising Monica. She tells herself many lies. It isn’t until Carol is gone she realizes she was a coward. 

Carol’s gone. Gone and dead and she’ll never make fun of her overalls again, never conspire with her daughter in driving Maria crazy, never smile at her like she knows. The military buries the truth and she doesn’t even have a body to bury. Monica cries for two weeks. Not quite able to understand where aunt Carol, really her second mother, went. Maria cries, she doesn’t let Monica see. She tries to be strong for Monica, stronger then she feels. She knows Carol would scoff at that, give her one of her rare serious moments. She’d tell Maria how strong she is, how brave, but Carol isn’t here. She isn’t here and Maria is crumbling. Falling in love with Carol is like nosediving, losing her is losing her wings.

She mourns. She doesn't stop mourning. Not when she testifies, not when Carol’s birthday passes, not when she leaves the military, not even when a woman wearing Carol’s face shows up. She mourns. 

Monica, so young even now, tosses her arms around the woman. The woman doesn’t hug back, face vacant with no recognition. She doesn’t remember them. Monica takes it with grace. She makes it into a mission but Maria has had enough of missions. Talking to this woman who goes by Vers breaks her heart all over again. 

The Skrulls comes, one too close to her daughter. Their daughter. She sees her Carol then, a flash of fierce determination. She wouldn’t let anything happen to Monica. 

When she remembers the crash and she storms outside, Maria tells Carol how it is. Her Carol. Carol asks her to come with her and she forces the lump in her throat down. She didn’t go last time. She knows it’s better, that she was able to give Monica one of her mothers. It doesn’t stop the what ifs and regrets. She goes. 

After, Carol is leaving again. Her heart is so wounded. She wonders how she keeps going. She doesn’t know how much more she can take. Carol hugs her like she used to. Firm and just a little too long. Maria melts into it. The first time she thought Carol would smell like leather and jet fuel. She didn’t. She smelled like fruity shampoo and men’s bar soap. She found out it’s because she couldn’t be bothered to buy soap bars when they’re provided but she cares about her hair. She expects her to smell like fire and the cosmos this time, she doesn’t. She smells of Maria’s shampoo and body wash. She smells of home. 

She doesn’t want to let her go. Afraid she’ll never see Carol again. Carol pulls away, hands still on Maria’s shoulders. Carol isn’t looking away, she keeps Maria’s gaze. It’s the kind of look Talos gave his wife earlier. One so deep and loving. Maria wants her to ask. She wants to tell. 

She doesn’t. Just like always, they pull away. Nothing is asked, nothing is said. Carol leaves. 

She doesn’t expect to see her again. She’s resigned to mourn and miss once more. She forgets, Carol didn’t get a choice about leaving last time. She does this time. She comes back.

It’s Monica’s birthday and they’re cooking when there’s a knock on the door. Carol’s standing there in her leather jacket, no Kree suit in sight, with a gift wrapped box. 

“You’re here.” 

“Couldn’t miss our baby’s birthday could I?” It’s cheeky and she’s beaming at Maria and Maria smiles back. 

“Aunt Carol!” A blur shoots past Maria and into Carol’s arms. “I knew you’d be back!” 

“The universe couldn’t keep me from you.” 

“What’d you get me?”

They walk into the kitchen and Carol sets the box on the counter. Maria is suspicious of the holes cut into the box and is rightly so. 

“I figured if Fury gets his cat, sorry Flerken, you get a pet too.” It’s an odd looking silk ferret with eight legs. Maria just goes back to cooking. “Won’t eat anyone though. Promise.” That’s aimed at Maria. Reassuring Maria she didn’t just buy a dangerous creature for their daughter. 

Maria watches them interact, how happy the two of them are and she can’t stop smiling. “What’d you get me?” 

“Well, Miss Rambeau, I brought myself.” The look in Carol’s eyes is challenging. Sparkling with mischief that warms Maria. 

“I suppose that’ll do.” She rolls her eyes at Carol, a path well worn. 

The night goes long, the three of them reacquainting. Carol doesn’t have all her memories back, likely never will. It doesn’t matter to Monica and as the night goes on it matter less to Maria as well. She doesn’t remember everything but she’s still Carol. Still strong and caring and witty. When Monica goes to bed, Carol and Maria drink on the porch. 

“You leaving again?”

“I have to. I won’t be away as long.” It’s a promise. She says it pained, like the time away hurt her. Like she missed them.

“Monica would like that.”

“And you?”

“Nothing I want more.” Carol’s smile is soft, her whole expression is. Maria gets up to throw away her bottle, her cheeks too flushed to stay around Carol for much longer.

Carol proves true to her word. She leaves but always come back. She doesn’t imagine that she’s gone for less time. Eventually, she stops leaving. The Skrulls are established and safe and she doesn’t find another mission. She comes home. She finds work at a mechanics shop and lives with them. Occasionally something dire will draw her away from earth but not often. Monica grow, quicker than Maria would like. Her little girl becomes a woman quicker than she can blink. 

“What are you doing out here? Monica is losing her shit over some show.” Carol sits down next to her, bodies pressed against each other. 

“I can’t believe she’s going off to college tomorrow.”

“It’s crazy. Just wait till she brings home a boyfriend or girlfriend and gives you a heart attack.” The casual use of girlfriend is what nearly gives her a heart attack but she doesn’t tell Carol that.

“I’m not old enough to have a heart attack.”

“Really, what’s this then?” Carol fingers a lock of graying hair with a smug grin. 

“Experience and wisdom.”

“Sounds like another way of saying old to me.”

“We can’t all be superpowered blondes.”

“You’re pretty superpowered.” Carols fingers haven’t moved away, fingers trailing down the side of her face. “You think I’m strong but you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. No hero, soldier, or legend ever measures up to you. Everywhere I look, I’m always looking for you.” Maria can hardly breathe, their foreheads leaning against one another. The humid air of the night does nothing to help her flush. 

“Since when did you get to be such a smooth talker?”

“I’ve always been charming.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Acquired taste then.” She can feel Carol’s breath, feel her eyelashes flutter against her. “Wasting years with the love of your life instead of just telling her makes you realize you have to say something smooth.” Maria pulls her in by the back of her neck. Carol’s lips are soft and slide against Maria’s. They kiss slow, after so many years they’re in no rush. Years of love and trust building into an unbreakable foundation. Years of longing and desire. Carol drags her teeth over Maria’s bottom lip before soothing it with her tongue. She wants to drag Carol to her room and figure out if Carol has been longing for her just as long. She wants to feel Carol quiver and arch into her touch. She wants so much from this woman and she can have it. 

“Gross.” They jerk away from each other. They’re both breathing hard and Carol’s hair is messier than usual. 

“Monica.” Carol’s voice is a bit higher than usual.

“It’s about time. Nick and I were going to do a secret mission if you guys took too much longer.” 

“What was the plan?” Maria can’t help but ask. 

“Lock you two in a closet.” 

“I can blast through spaceships.”

“With mom in the small closet next to you? You wouldn’t even make a spark. You’d be too afraid to hurt her.” Somehow Monica was able to find the most plausible way to trap them together, make fun of Carol, and say something sweet. She loves her daughter. 

Life without Monica is a change. Life with Carol is also a change. Now when she gets the urge to kiss Carol she can. She wakes up with the woman most days. She didn’t think this kind of happiness existed. 

It doesn’t last. It never does. Something always happens. Her brother is killed she gets told she can’t be a real pilot, she loves Carol but can’t tell her, Carol dies, Carol comes back but leaves, people disappear. 

Carol is a strong woman, she is too. She knows her own strength. She fought in a space battle and saved Skrulls. She is a mother. She is a strong woman. Carol is a galactic hero. She’s never seen a person so broken. She wonders if that’s how she looks. Carol is running to her, Kree suit on and the ground obliterated where she had crash landed. She’s been off-planet for a few days now. Terrorists were blowing up Skrull cities and she went to help. She’d been off-planet when it started. People started disappearing. Turning to ash. She must have flown as fast as she could to get back. Her face is one of horror. She wonders if it’s at the ash that covers her and her tears or the fact her fingers are now disintegrating. 

Carol is holding onto her, the ashes of their daughter between them, and there is nothing she can do. She’s crying, they both are.

“I’m gonna fix this. I will not lose you two.” The determination in her eyes, the heartbreak and anger. Maria is crying, the loss of Monica breaking her so deeply she won’t be okay until she has her in her arms again. She doesn’t doubt Carol. She scared, she’s disintegrating, but she knows Carol will fix it. Her hero will save the day. She only hopes there will be something to come back to.


End file.
